32 things we learned from Week 18 of 2021 NFL season: Playoff picture gets last-second shake-up
rampant playoff turnover. Ever since the league first expanded the playoff field to 12 teams and began seeding them in 1990, at least four new clubs have reached the postseason every successive year. The 2021 lineup will feature seven teams – the Arizona Cardinals, Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, Las Vegas Raiders, New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers – that didn’t participate a year ago.
2. With the Cards limping into the field, breaking a six-year drought, every NFC team has participated in the Super Bowl tournament at least once since 2016 – when the New York Giants and Detroit Lions last qualified. The New York Jets maintain the league’s longest playoff drought, one that extends to 2010, followed by the Broncos. Denver, which hasn’t returned since winning Super Bowl 50 following the 2015 season, fired coach Vic Fangio on Sunday morning.
the league’s first Monday night wild-card broadcast, a rubber match forum as the Cardinals visit the Los Angeles Rams for the NFC West rivals’ third meeting of the season.
4. Also different? The presence of Raiders QB Derek Carr, who will be making his long-awaited postseason debut. Carr was an MVP candidate in 2016, when the Silver and Black last reached the playoffs. But he suffered a season-ending broken leg in Week 16.
help from an unlikely source in Trevor Lawrence. Then the 49ers made a memorable comeback in Los Angeles, punching their wild-card ticket with an overtime triumph over the Rams, who backed into the NFC West crown anyway thanks to a loss by Arizona. But that all paled to game No. 272, the Raiders beating the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday night with a field goal on the final play of overtime – after the Bolts called a widely parsed timeout that might have nixed the tie which would have permitted both teams to pass beyond the playoff velvet rope. An absolutely stunning day of football.
NFL PLAYOFF PICTURE:Raiders seal wild-card spot, push Steelers into field with OT win vs. Chargers
NFL PLAYOFF SCHEDULE:Times, dates, matchups, TV info for wild-card round through Super Bowl
6. Apparently the Indianapolis Colts really didn’t feel like doing any more “Hard Knocks” episodes. How else to explain Sunday’s unforgivable 26-11 loss to the Jaguars in Jacksonville, where the Colts amazingly haven’t won since 2014? Now, a team that appeared primed to potentially do significant damage in the playoffs, prematurely heads into an offseason where many will again openly wonder if the Carson Wentz trade – and it will now cost Indy its 2022 first-rounder – was worth it.
strapped down the AFC’s first-round bye and home-field advantage Sunday. Now RB Derrick Henry has two more weeks to prepare his surgically repaired foot to complement an underrated defense that always seems ready. Nobody should be eager to go to Music City this month.Steelers OLB T.J. Watt matched Hall of Famer Michael Strahan’s single-season sack record by finishing at 22½. Strahan played in 16 games in 2001 … when Brett Favre help him set the “record.” Watt appeared in 15 games this season and got no help from the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.
23. How about this as a potential epitaph to Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger’s career: In 18 NFL seasons, he’s never finished below .500, a league record for a player.
24. If Sunday was QB Russell Wilson’s final game with the Seattle Seahawks, he went out with a relative bang, accounting for four TDs in a 38-30 victory at Arizona which cost the Cardinals an NFC West crown.
25. Seahawks RBÂ Rashaad Penny, a first-rounder in 2018, likely made himself some money heading into free agency. His 190-yard output Sunday gives Penny, finally healthy, 671 yards and six TDs on the ground over the past five games.
26. The Giants scored 26 points – total – over their final four games.Â
27. Meanwhile, the Jets mustered four first downs and 53 total yards in their final “performance” of the season.
28. Any surprise New York’s finest are both 22-59 since the start of the 2017 season, tied for the league’s worst record over that span?
29. And the Jets didn’t get any 2022 favors from Seattle, which won its final two games to drop its first-round pick – Gang Green owns it due to the Jamal Adams trade – to 10th after it appeared for a while like the NYJ might get two selections in the top five of the upcoming draft.Â
will pick No. 1 overall in the draft for the second straight year. Safe to say they won’t be taking a quarterback.
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Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Nate Davis on Twitter @ByNateDavis.